Browsing Tag

Movies

Movies

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review post!

My household, along with , just got back from seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!

I’ve posted before about I’ve still got the original copy of The Hobbit that I read in sixth grade–complete with my name written in pencil on the unicorn nameplate sticker on the inside cover. The eleven-year-old me who read that book is absolutely delighted by the movie we just saw. 43-year-old me is somewhat more reserved in her reaction; there are parts of the film that I absolutely loved, and there are other parts that I feel could have benefited a lot from tighter editing.

And make no mistake–this is very much Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle-Earth in play here. If you like Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth, you’ll probably enjoy yourself. If you’re not a fan of the previous movies, you probably won’t.

Me? I am a longstanding devotee of the books. But I’m also a devotee of the movies. And while I saw some flaws in this one… yeah, I enjoyed myself immensely. And I’ll be going back for more. In no small part because we saw the 24fps, non-3D version tonight–on the grounds that we very specifically wanted to see that version first, in case the 48fps wound up interfering with the viewing of the actual movie. (I’ve had prior movies released in 3D be actively distracting to me in that format–I’m looking at you, Thor–and have enjoyed them much more upon viewing them in 2D.

But I AM totally curious about the 48fps version and I DO want to see it. Now that I’ve gotten the viewing of the standard version out of the way and am able to react to the plot and characterization first, that’ll free me up to better react to the technology later!

And with that, let’s get down to spoilery goodness behind the fold. 😀

Continue Reading

Movies

Skyfall!

userinfosolarbird and userinfospazzkat and our visiting Turkey Day weekend guest went to go see the new Bond flick last night! Opinions were divided, but I myself came down on the side of WHOA, for the most part!

Spoiler-laden general reactions behind the cut!

Continue Reading

Movies

Hobbit news!

Word is going around the net that The Hobbit starts filming in July! Tolkien fans, please to be joining me in squee that Sir Ian McKellen will be reprising his role as Gandalf.

However, that leaves plenty more important roles to be filled. I’m of course crossing fingers for Hugo Weaving to come back as Elrond and Andy Serkis to be Gollum, because I cannot frankly imagine anyone else in either role. Cate Blanchett for Galadriel would also be sweet.

But let’s talk the most important role: Bilbo himself. Who should play him? Ian Holm is too old to play the younger Bilbo required in the story. And who should play the dwarves? It’s highly unlikely that John Rhys-Davies would show up as his own previous character’s father, Gloin, given the issues he had with the dwarf makeup during the LotR trilogy. But surely the role of Thorin Oakenshield would require somebody of equal heartiness and presence.

Who would y’all want to see play Bard and the Elvenking? And how about this deeply critical question: who should be the voice of Smaug?

Hrmm. I really need more LotR-related icons, preferably some involving hobbits. 🙂

Movies

All hands, brace for fangirling!

For those of you who haven’t seen this already, here’s the latest trailer for the forthcoming Robin Hood movie. Look for none other than Alan The Doyle, showing up around the 0:54 mark or so–with a line, even!

Is it May yet? Is it May yet? Is it May yet? Also, elf needs icons, BADLY. And desktop backgrounds! And, Big Trailer is Big, so behind the cut it goes!

Continue Reading

Movies

More serious Avatar thoughts

It occurs to me upon reflection that I had better also address the fact that even if I didn’t care about them as a viewer while I was watching the movie, with my writer hat on, I do need to care about the various tropes that the movie deals with, and why it really would have been better if they hadn’t been there. I’m breaking this out into its own post since it covers the not-squeeful, more thoughtful reaction I have to the film.

The biggest one being, of course, what called the What These People Need is a Honky plotline. ‘Cause yeah, this time around the savages are blue aliens, but they’re still savages, and we’re still dealing with a plotline of White Guy Comes In, Gets It On With the Chief’s Daughter, and Becomes the Big Respected Warrior. Um, yeah. Seen that. And it would be unjust of me as a writer if I didn’t point at that and go “okay, that? That’s something we ought to know better than to use as a plot device at this point.”

Continue Reading

Movies

Avatar movie review!

userinfosolarbird, userinfospazzkat, and I all went to go see Avatar last night, finally–the second time for userinfospazzkat, but the first time for userinfosolarbird and me.

Picoreview: Okay sure, the plot’s totally predictable, although I didn’t find it nearly as weakly so as many comments had led me to believe. And holy crap, so very, very pretty, and entirely worth seeing in 3-D.

More comments behind the cut!

Continue Reading

About Me, Movies, Television

And now, a holiday review!

I’m coming off a nice long vacation, thanks to my workplace having given the entire lot of us the week of Christmas off. This was as the cool kids say AWESOME, given that it meant that and I were able to have Longest Night without me having to take an extra day off for that. And that was a nice way indeed to fire off a relaxing break.

The weekend of the Solstice was pretty much given over to, aside from a special Solstice Murkjam (more on this in another post), a mighty rewatching of the entire extended edition Lord of the Rings trilogy. There are few movies I can happily watch over and over again, but these? Absolutely. Especially when Dara starts asking me questions about Middle-Earth lore and we get to Tolkiengeek. <3 Plus, this time around I started finally watching a lot of the copious extras in all three sets of discs, which I had never done despite owning these things for years now. I'm sure you all know by now, but yeah, lots of lovely stuff there and I've only barely scratched the surface of it all.

Did a lot of catchup of medical appointments during the week, and the highlight of that was getting to touch bases with both my endocs and say "by the way, I'm working on seriously trying to lose weight, just so you all know". In particular, wanted to check with the thyroid endoc to make sure I coordinate with him about how to reduce my T4 and T3 dosage as I drop pounds. I've already had to start tweaking my intake since I've dropped six pounds or so.

I dropped in on to say hi in between some of those aforementioned medical appointments, and was treated to tea and a cookie and her delightful offspring informing us, when asked where her dump truck was, “it could be ANYWHERE!” Lillian continues to impress me with her smarts. This kid is going to be scary when she gets older. Hell, she’s kind of scary now!

Christmas itself was pleasantly low-key and featured first going out with to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Picoreview: big silly fun if you can buy that this was totally a fluffy, alternate-universe version of Holmes and Watson that didn’t bear too much resemblance to the canon versions. I did like many get a kick out of the chemistry between Holmes and Watson, and felt that poor Mary was sadly underused as a character, and that the actress playing Irene wasn’t quite up to the task of her own character’s awesomeness. But really, the thing I liked the most about the movie? The music. Especially the jigs during the action scenes and the take of “Rocky Road to Dublin”. I may have to buy the soundtrack on the strength of that alone.

Christmas evening, , , and all had dinner with us at the Murk and then we all watched the new Doctor Who, “The End of Time, Part 1”. Most definitely more on this in another post. There are rumblings of another group watch of Part 2 to come.

I closed out this past weekend with going, finally, with Dara to see 2012 before it finally vanishes out of the local theaters. We wound up having to catch it at the Alderwood Mall cinema, which was really kinda crazytalk since the place was swarming with after-Christmas shoppers and getting from our parking spot to the theater was a nerve-wracking exercise in dodging oncoming traffic. But we did manage to get there on time, and once we were actually settled in, despite being too close to the screen for comfort, we had a delightful time. I’m sure many of you already know this by now too, but yeah, this movie was awesomely bad. We’re talking epic levels of MSTable disaster pr0n, which is pretty much exactly what we were there for. Mutating neutrinos, baby!

Didn’t get a damn bit of writing or reading done, but on the whole, I didn’t really mind. I’ve been catching up on fixing broken stuff on this web site instead, and that sits well with me, since the long-undone tasks there were annoying me, and I found fixing those relaxing. I assure you all though that more writing and reading will be coming with the New Year.

And oh yes: with coming home from Virginia on Sunday, we had our little house gift exchange. My nifty l00t: one box of Ninth Doctor DVDs (man, I do love Nine and Rose, I must say), one lovely tin of bath bombs from LUSH, one $50 Barnes and Noble gift card which I promptly spent on five new ebooks, and last but not least, this, which is pretty much the Best Possible Christmas Ornament to Give to Anna, Ever:

Indy Ornament

Carefully, Indy

There’s a button on it that plays the Raiders March when you press it. knows me very, very well. <3